Trouble for Two
by TigressDreamer
Summary: Nothing like a bit of trouble to make fast friends. But who knew that discussing little sisters and soothing hurt feelings could be hazardous? (Sequel to Three in a Pub. Rated for a bit of language.)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer for the entire story: Sadly, I do not own Strange Magic, although I do have the DVD that I play once a week.**

 **Takes place right after Three in a Pub ends. Got this finished a few days ago but haven't been able to upload it. Constructive advice is appreciated but please refrain from criticism. Enjoy!**

 **(Slight edit as of February 6, 2020)  
**

"Is he always like that?" Marianne questions through her snickers.

"That's Roland for ye," Bog mutters, downing his fourth drink. "One-of-a-kind and thank God for it. Can ye imagine the chaos if there were more like him?"

"I have enough trouble dealing with Dawn," Marianne murmurs. "I love my sister but she can be nothing but trouble sometimes and she definitely doesn't understand boundaries!"

Bog watches as Marianne pulls the dinging phone out of her boot with a growl. The brunette looks sorely tempted to smash the electronic device as she reads the multiple texts and her scrunched-up nose nearly makes him laugh. She's definitely different than her sister.

Dawn always seemed to pout no matter if she was angry or sad. He had to remind himself of her age several times during the course of their relationship...no, that's wrong. There was no relationship except on his part.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" Marianne asks as he orders another double shot of whiskey.

"Not until I can't walk for fear of falling," Bog comments. "I don't want to think about it but it's a bit hard when I took her everywhere. I showed her everything that was important to me and it took me six months to realize that I wasn't important to her. Even if we were friends like she insisted that we were then how come I don't know anything about her? After all, friends know about each other."

Marianne bites her lip at the anger in that last sentence and the accompanying sigh. That definitely sounded like something Dawn would say. Maybe Dawn has been causing more trouble than inadvertently causing guys to fall in love with her. Come to think of it, she can't name one of Dawn's girl friends that stuck around for more than several months or that weren't gossipy busybodies.

"Yeah, friends do know about each other," Marianne agrees. "But I'm beginning to wonder if Dawn is being a good friend to anybody. The only friend that stuck around for more than a few years is Sunny and he might have left too if I hadn't encouraged him when Dawn started ignoring him for other guys. I honestly don't know what's going on in her head."

"That makes two of us," Bog remarks, clinking his glass to hers. "She's a good kid but..."

"She doesn't really pay attention to anyone's feelings but hers for more than a few seconds?" Marianne offers.

"Something like that," Bog agrees. "Do ye really think that she doesn't understand what she's doing? It might make it easier if I know that she wasn't doing all this on purpose."

"I really don't think that she is doing any of this on purpose," Marianne reassures. "Anytime I warned her about her behavior with other guys, she would always brush me off and tell me that I was overreacting. She did that with Dad, too."

"Doesn't sound to me that you were overprotective," Jack comments. "Sounds more like that Dawn didn't take the truly important things seriously. That's something that we all noticed, too, but with Bog being so serious himself, we felt that they would be able to balance each other out. They sure looked like a nice couple."

"Not helpful, Jack," Bog groans.

"No, maybe it is. Maybe if people started calling Dawn out on her behavior then she might start realizing that she's been hurting other people," Marianne argues. "No one has ever corrected Dawn before. They were all too worried about hurting her feelings and only told me or Dad about what she's done. Then when we confronted her, she brushed it off that we were overreacting because the people didn't confront her themselves."

"Nobody corrected her? Ever?" Bog questions incredulously.

"Nope. The didn't want to upset the poor motherless girl," Marianne mocks. "It doesn't help that Dawn has very high emotions and will start crying at the drop of a hat. Again, it's not entirely intentional but Dawn never tried to correct it."

"Maybe she just liked the attention. People do flock to her like sheep when she steps into the university," Bog comments.

"Maybe," Marianne agrees. "It's gone too far this time, though, and she's gonna have to listen to me. Sunny is planning on proposing to her and she can't keep letting people believe that she is available or it's going to destroy them both."

"Hopefully, his proposal goes better than mine," Bog mutters.

Bog pulls his Gran's wedding ring from his pocket and stares at the golden band. His mother is going to be so disappointed once he manages to tell her. She really liked Dawn, not that surprising since she liked practically everyone, but she was looking forward to having the petite blonde as a daughter-in-law.

"Ooh, that is beautiful!" Marianne coos, leaning against Bog for a better look.

"It's a family heirloom," Bog explains. "My great-great-grandfather made it for a girl he wanted to propose to but her father was a wee stubborn, so he thought that if he showed the proof of his dedication then her father might reconsider. It worked and the ring got passed down to each son as a good luck charm to give to his desired bride."

"I don't mean to sound mean but Dawn wouldn't have appreciated its beauty," Marianne mentions. "She prefers new and shiny. Surely, you noticed that all her jewelry is no younger than five years."

"I actually never noticed," Bog admits bashfully. "I know she's studying fashion and I figured she was dressing to keep up with the modern fashion for school. I guess I know less about her than I thought."

"It happens," Marianne remarks. "Sometimes you think you love someone and then you realize that the person you were in love with isn't who they really are."

"Sounds like you have experience," Bog comments.

"A little while ago, I thought I was really in love with this one guy who works for my dad," Marianne admits. "He was friendly since I was the boss' daughter and I thought it was something more until I found out that he was engaged to be married."

"What an arse," Bog and Jack mumble.

"It wasn't his fault," Marianne defends. "He didn't even know that I had a crush on him and neither did anyone else. It was his fiancee who realized it and took me aside to talk to me. It was our little secret because she didn't want me to be embarrassed. The point is that you could be in love with a side of Dawn you see and not really who Dawn is. It might take a while but you might find out that you didn't love her as much as you think you do or the way you think you do. I'm not saying that you need to forgive her right away, because after all, she wasn't honest with you even as a friend. What I'm saying is that you don't need to beat yourself up for falling in love with who you thought Dawn was. Take this as an experience for the future."

"I get what you're saying but I need some time without her around to get my head and heart straight. Do ye think ye can keep Dawn from trying to contact me while ye're visiting and maybe convince her to leave me alone when ye leave?" Bog pleads.

"No problem," Marianne reassures. "Especially since I ain't leaving. Sunny doesn't know and therefore Dawn doesn't know but this trip is actually me moving to London. From the stories I strangled out of Sunny, I started getting the feeling that Dawn was doing the same thing she had done at home and applied for a job here during the time that Dawn is here. Good thing, too, because now I'm worried about how much damage control I'm going to have to do. Or more like, what I'm going to have to force Dawn to do."

"Do ye really think that will help her, though? It might really hurt her badly," Bog murmurs.

"Bog, we survived watching Mom die when we were kids," Marianne states bluntly. "Trust me, Dawn is a lot stronger than anyone gives her credit for. I'm guilty of being protective of her but only to the point of rescuing her after she gets into trouble. She will be fine and it will save her from ruining her life. By the way, can I see that ring?"

Marianne grins victoriously as Bog hands the ring to her. It is definitely a piece of art with its intricate vine and flower carvings that wrap around the band and also wrap around the bright citrine. The jewel may have been a bit odd for a wedding ring but as she slips the ring onto her ring finger to admire it fully, she finds the clear stone very appealing against her skin.

"Bog, what's this I hear about ye yelling at Dawn?" a sharp voice cries out.

Jack disappears in short order as Bog turns his attention from the short brown-haired young woman beside him to face the short red-haired elderly woman behind him. It may have been a bad idea to turn his cell phone off, after all, and he probably should have just blocked all calls from Dawn instead because his mother definitely doesn't look happy with him at the moment.

"I tried calling ye to ask ye how the proposal went but ye didn't pick up, so I called Dawn. The only thing she could tell me was that she hasn't seen ye since ye yelled at her and she had no idea where ye were. She didn't even seem to want to talk to me. What did ye...," Griselda stops mid-sentence as the yellow jewel catches her attention. "Bog! How could ye propose to a different girl?"

Bog stares into Marianne's equally horrified eyes before their attention shift to the wedding ring still adorning her ring finger. They were in so much trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

"And that's all that has happened, Maw," Bog explains, handing the offered rum to his fuming mother.

"I think I need to thank Dawn for making my shift very busy today," Jack mutters, filling another rum after Griselda empties hers quickly.

"I think I need to give that girl a walloping," Griselda growls. "She's twenty-three, surely she has more common sense than to fool with other peoples' feelings!"

"It's not on purpose, Mrs King," Marianne soothes.

"Maybe, maybe not. Ye can't say that for certain," Griselda argues. "Somewhere in that girl, she knows that what she is doing is wrong or she wouldn't be working so hard to conceal it. It's high time that girl has to face the consequences of her actions."

"I know," Marianne sighs. "This is proof that she isn't being responsible for herself and next time she might spurn a guy that might do more than yell at her."

"There's also the chance that her real boyfriend might get fed-up with all of it," Bog comments. "For the record, I don't have anything against the guy since it isn't his fault that all this happened."

"How does the boyfriend deal with all of this?" Griselda questions.

"Sunny is exactly his namesake and when he and Dawn are together it is quite possible to get cavities from looking at them," Marianne remarks, grinning at the resulting chuckles. "As I said, they've been friends since they were five and he's been in love with her for forever. He stayed by her side during the boy crazy stage and even helped her get together with her weekly crushes. He felt that if she was happy with whoever she loved then he would be happy despite not being that guy."

"I hear a but," Jack murmurs, filling another customer's order. "Didn't you say that you had to encourage the bloke?"

"Could you really go through your teenage years pretending you didn't love your best friend while at the same time helping said best friend hook-up with their present crush? There were a few times that he got really depressed. It didn't help that Dawn's ex-crushes took out their frustration on him when Dawn got tired of them," Marianne comments. "Not that he ever told her the full truth of how he got some of those injuries and he begged me not to tell her when I patched him up. Luckily, he had taken quite a few self-defense courses and had taken up parkour as a hobby by the time Dawn realized that she loved him in return or he may have wound up with injuries that I couldn't fix when she started to inadvertently lead guys on. He never tells her about it because he doesn't want to upset her and he says that it doesn't bother him about her guy friends because she tells him everything. I think Sunny is a masochist, really."

"Sounds like both of them need a talking to," Griselda declares with a decisive nod. "Loving someone doesn't mean to ignore anything they do that is wrong. In fact, doing so isn't love at all. To love someone is also to correct them when they need to be corrected, sometimes gently and sometimes tough."

"The problem is if they even listen," Marianne grumbles, draining her beer but waving off a refill. "Dad and I try to talk to Dawn but she ignores it. If we get too tough on her, she gets upset and then we get sidetracked to get her to calm down. I've told Sunny many times that he needs to talk to Dawn about all of this but he can't stand to see anyone upset, especially Dawn."

"If those two won't listen to ye then I'll just talk to them myself," Griselda insists. "I'm not easily swayed by hurt feelings. Dealt with too many of Bog's temper tantrums and boy, did he have a lot. I can't count the number of times I had to wait for him to wear himself out. He's a sensitive man himself, ye know. Compared to raising Bog, I'll have no trouble with Dawn and Sunny."

Bog groans at his mother's speech and can feel the heat flooding his face. Marianne's snickering doesn't help his embarrassment and Jack's fake cough doesn't truly conceal his own laughter. He's grateful that Roland left or he'd never hear the end of it.

"No offense but how are you sure that they'll listen to you?" Marianne asks after a few minutes.

"Simple. They'll have no choice in the matter," Griselda states. "I am in charge of all the foreign students, after all."

"Maw, ye don't have that kind of authority off the university grounds," Bog reminds.

"They don't know that," Griselda remarks with a smirk. "Besides, she may not have hurt ye on purpose but she did hurt ye and I'm not going to let her get away with it. A little fear might do her some good."

"Right now is a good time to lecture them because they're still at Dawn's apartment," Marianne comments, looking at the newest message on her cell phone. "They're complaining about being there but they don't want to leave until I return. I got business to attend to and I'm not going to rescue them this time."

Bog watches as Marianne pays for her drinks and sighs inwardly at the sign of her departure. No doubt that he'll probably never see her again since he'll be avoiding her sister from now on. Marianne was good company and he wasn't quite ready to go back to brooding about his life.

He also isn't ready to inform the rest of his friends and family about the fake relationship. Everyone will be as upset as his mother, Roland, and Jack, and he doesn't think he can handle their anger toward Dawn. Despite what she did, he couldn't help but still love the bubbly blonde.

Downing his sixth drink, he ignores Jack's raised eyebrow and orders another one. He wasn't drunk enough yet and he isn't planning on stopping until he is.

"In that case, I'll head over to Dawn's place now," Griselda informs. "Before ye go, Marianne, I was wondering. Do ye have a boyfriend?"

Marianne stares at the elderly woman in shock as Bog chokes on his drink. She's sure that she is misunderstanding the implications behind the seemingly innocent question but Bog's own red face staring in shock towards his mother is proof that she did not hear wrong. Oh boy. Exit stage right.

"Wow, look at the time! I have to be going now," Marianne comments hastily.

"I think I'll join ye," Bog mutters, throwing down the money to pay for his and his mother's drinks.

Griselda snickers as the pair nearly run out of the pub's door as if the building was on fire. If her son had enough energy to be embarrassed then his broken heart will be fine with some time.

"Don't you think it's too early to try and set Bog up with a date?" Jack questions.

"I wasn't trying to. I only asked Marianne if she was single," Griselda states innocently. "Apparently, she is and I'll definitely be saving that answer for when Bog's heart is ready for a relationship in a few months."

Ignoring Jack's snickering, Griselda heads outside and smiles at the sight of Bog and Marianne walking together down the street before heading in the opposite direction towards Dawn's apartment. At least her son gained a new friend in all this.

 **Tea Blend.**


End file.
